Uncle Kyrylo receives wings as a New Year's gift and becomes so proud of them, that he starts to teach birds how to fly, but then realizes that he knows very little about it himself.
When the 'Lowly Ronin' helps an orphaned teenage girl avoid being turned into a prostitute, she then claims he is her father and they start a farm as father and daughter until fate steps in and he must draw his sword.
The film is inspired by the Mário de Sá-Carneiro short story, where the narration is made by Professor Antena's assistant who walks by his side when he is run over in a perhaps enigmatic way.
The story, told partly in flashback to 1968, concerns a clique of English public schoolboys who bully and humiliate an unpopular younger pupil (Cox) who is 'bad at games'.
Faithful adaptation of a story by Tomasi di Lampedusa on the encounter between a man and a mermaid, for the television series Ten Italian directors, ten Italian short stories , in which Gianni Amelio, Luigi Comencini, Carlo Lizzani participated among others.